"Have you got an appointment here in town?" asked the sparrows.
And the roses nodded: they recognised their brown neighbors, and rejoiced to see them again. "How delightful it is to live and to bloom, to see old friends again, and every day to look on happy faces! It is as if every day were a holy-day."
"Chirrup!" said the sparrows. "Yes, it is in truth our old neighbors; their origin—from the pond—is still quite clear in our memory! Chirrup! How they have risen in the world! Yes, Fortune favors some while they sleep! Ah! there is a withered leaf that I see quite plainly." And they pecked at it so long till the leaf fell off; and the tree stood there greener and more fresh, the roses gave forth their fragrance in the sunshine over Thorwaldsen's grave, with whose immortal name, they were united.
THE DARNING-NEEDLE.
There was once upon a time a darning needle, that imagined itself so fine, that at last it fancied it was a sewing-needle.
"Now, pay attention, and hold me firmly!" said the darning-needle to the fingers that were taking it out. "Do not let me fall! If I fall on the ground, I shall certainly never be found again, so fine am I."
"Pretty well as to that," answered the fingers; and so saying, they took hold of it by the body.
"Look, I come with a train!" said the darning-needle, drawing a long thread after it, but there was no knot to the thread.
The fingers directed the needle against an old pair of shoes belonging to the cook. The upper-leather was torn, and it was now to be sewed together.